Scarface: The World Is Yours

"It's a nice rental, even if the game could be more fun."

If you don't like this game, that makes you a cockaroach! Is that even a word? Well it is to Tony Montana, our protagonist for Scarface: The World Is Yours. Like Grand Theft Auto before it, Scarface is a sandbox game where you can drive around the vast city of Miami and raise your drug empire.

STORY
The game doesn't just make you play through the movie. The game is basically a what-if story about Tony Montana escaping his killers at the end of the movie. See instead of getting shot in the back, you take control and kill them all. Tony manages to escape his mansion and realizes the error of his ways. With more resolve than ever before, the Cuban refugee is looking to take the fight back to his enemy Sosa and earn back his drug empire. By any means necessary of course. Is the story as deep as the movie? No, so don't expect otherwise. It's more of a comedy as opposed to Scarface's serious tone too. Mainly because of Tony's hilarious dialogue.

GRAPHICS
So how's it look? Very nice. Miami manages to look just as beautiful as it's real life counterpart, complete with some decent sunlight effects, breathtaking water, and a damn nice 3D recreation of Al Pacino. And we can't forget that Scarface takes place in the 80s so naturally all of the characters in the game whether they be important or pedestrian, are all sporting their great 80's fashion. And be warned that Tony kills his enemies with absolutely no remorse. Tons of exploding head shots, dismemberment, and at the beginning of the game a guy gets eaten by a tiger! Not for the squeamish basically.

SOUND
And the audio is probably the most interesting and impressive thing. Tons of licensed songs from not only the movie, but also from random artists who I'm pretty sure didn't begin their career until the 90's. Seeing as Scarface has a lot of rap artist fans, the game of course has a big selection of hip-hop music....which I gotta be honest just doesn't fit. Still they can be turned off, and there are great 80's pop music and other alternative stuff to jam too. Unlike GTA, you can listen to the music on foot, for those who need a soundtrack blaring at all times. This game has a ridiculous amount of celebrities doing voice acting for this game. Guys like James Woods, Tommy Chong, Bam Margera, Jason Mewes, and much, much more. Seriously you boot up the game and the credits come on and make you go “Zuh?!” because there are sooo many celebrities in this game. And yet no Al Pacino. But no worries, the guy who supplies Montana's voice does a very good job. And some of the things he says are so hilarious and so bizarre that you'll have a hard time trying to stop laughing. Oh and swears galore in this game...again, not for kiddies. Though that should be obvious.

GAMEPLAY
As I mentioned before, this game is basically another Grand Theft Auto type game that tries to do things a little different. Like the GTA games you are a gangster in a giant city. This time it's Miami. You can carjack anyone in the streets and take their vehicle. You get in shootouts with drug lords and gang members. You can compete in the occasional street race. And you can try to earn yourself some nice fat reputation so that you may build upon your glorious empire. Sure it follows the GTA formula, but in reality it's a much different game. One thing you'll notice off the bat is that you can't shoot pedestrians.

Zuh? See, because Tony doesn't kill people “who don't have it coming”, he refuses to shoot random people on the street. So unfortunately if you like bloody massacres and seeing how long you can last...this isn't the game for you. Scarface is littered with missions and practically no sidequests. The only thing in the game that might count as a sidequest are the gang wars and how you're buying new furniture and luxuries to help raise your reputation. But the reality is that every now and then you can't progress with the game unless your reputation is at a certain point. So that means you HAVE to buy luxuries and fight in gang wars if you want to progress the story. Sidequests there is not.

As Montana you gain access to a handful of weapons. Handguns, shotguns, machine guns, even the great Rocket launcher will be at your disposal. Stuff that many veteran gamers will probably remember though. The gunplay isn't the best in my opinion. It can be stupid and great at the same time. The game has a few too many problems that force me to call this game average and not great. For one, the instant kills. If you're making too many gang members or police officers angry by say...killing them or doing bad stuff needed to improve your reputation, that means you get tons of heat. If they're on you for too long, you just get your head blown off from outta nowhere. So anytime the cops are on you...RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! Does that make the game fun? No. If you can't go around killing pedestrians and you have to run practically anytime a cop shows up, something is wrong. The fun is drained from these things.

Actually I'm sorta lying. You can bribe the cops if you're heat isn't big enough. But basically you have to let a cop walk up to you, and then you have to win this timing mini-game that is littered everywhere in the game. You need to do it for depositing money in the bank, for bribing the cops, for making good drug deals, and practically everything else you can think of. The timing mini-game is fairly easy, but when you screw it up it's the most aggravating thing ever. To be honest a lot of the stuff you do in the game is busy work, and doesn't make for a real fun game. I'd say if there's a Scarface 2, the game needs to be a lot funner.

IN THE END...
So It's a GTA clone. Is it better? Not at all. Is it still fairly enjoyable? Well Tony's hilarious to listen to, and it isn't a broken game. To me it's just not all that fun. But fun is an opinion, so go nuts and rent the game if you like Scarface and see if you like it. Now I'm off...I need to rush rush to the yayo. Whatever that means.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/01/07